Sukkos (סוכות) — the Festival of Booths

Core definition

Sukkos (15–21 Tishrei, with Shemini Atzeres/Simchas Torah concluding the festival) commemorates the Divine protection of Israel in the desert: "So that your generations shall know that I caused the children of Yisrael to dwell in sukkos" (Vayikra 23:43) — "for when they left Egypt He encircled them with clouds of glory (ananei kavod)," as Onkelos renders it, "in the shelter of the cloud" — "and as a remembrance of this He commanded us to make sukkos" [31678/maamar_003 :: עב׳ 4–6]. In the maamarim, the sukkah's essence is the makif — an encompassing light — and the festival as a whole is the drawing of the highest, most essential lights after the refinement of Yom Kippur.

How the Rebbeim develop it

The classic question is the Tur's (Orach Chaim 625): if the sukkah remembers the Exodus, "it would have been fitting to make the sukkah in Nissan, in which we left Egypt" — why Tishrei? [31678/maamar_003 :: עב׳ 7]. The 5678 maamar's answer builds the whole Yom Kippur-to-Sukkos arc as one movement. After the Yom Kippur teshuvah — the goat to Azazel bearing the coarsest dregs away, "to quiet the Accuser" — "the soiled garments removed," there are the "change-garments": "the encompassing lights of Sukkos's seven days, 'love in delights,' drawn inward through the lulav" [31678/maamar_003 :: Overview]. "Afterward, on Sukkos, she receives the cheseds — the matter of 'his right hand embraces me' (Shir HaShirim 2:6) — drawn in the aspect of inwardness through the lulav and its species" [31678/maamar_003 :: עב׳ 322–324]. "This is why the festival of Sukkos is specifically in Tishrei, after Yom Kippur: all this is drawn after the goat has borne [the sins] upon itself — after the teshuvah of Yom Kippur, when the soiled garments have been removed" [31678/maamar_003 :: עב׳ 325–328]. Malchus's building runs through gevuros first, then is established by cheseds: Nissan (chesed: Pesach's arousal from above) and Tishrei (gevurah: Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur — "his left hand under my head"; Sukkos — "his right hand embraces me") [31678/maamar_003 :: Overview]. Tishrei's ohr chozer (arousal from below) draws "higher, inner cheseds than Nissan's ohr yashar" — and in winter's gevurah-setting the sukkah is recognizable as a mitzvah, where in summer's chesed it would not be [31678/maamar_003 :: Overview].

The sukkah's metaphysics is developed in the 5691 maamar on "בסכות תשבו": how is dwelling (hisyashvus) possible in the sukkah, which is a makif? "This is 'ba'sukkos teishevu': they are the makifim of chayah and yechidah. Although they are makifim, nevertheless the matter of hisyashvus (settling) is pertinent to them" — "to this one can reach through the completeness of avodah — in the avodah of nefesh, ruach, neshamah, in the two manners of avodah of yichuda tata'ah and yichuda ila'ah" [58849/maamar_006 :: מאמר 6 (ו) — ד״ה: בסכות תשבו, עב׳ 818–821]. Then the verse's second half becomes a promise: "Then 'kol ha'ezrach b'Yisrael yeishevu ba'sukkos' — which is the point of the promise" — the completed dwelling for His very essence in the lower realms [58849/maamar_006 :: מאמר 6 (ו) — ד״ה: בסכות תשבו, עב׳ 821; Overview]. The neshamah itself is structured yesh, ayin, v'yesh — its essence-root (the true yesh, a part of the Essence), chayah and yechidah (the two ayins), nefesh-ruach-neshamah (yesh) — so through complete avodah the neshamas of Yisrael "can draw the revelation of the Essence literally, as before the tzimtzum" [58849/maamar_006 :: Overview].

The festival's joy is zman simchaseinu. The Tiku hemshech (5674) treats the Simchas Beis HaSho'evah: "'chasidim ve'anshei ma'aseh hayu merakdim be'avukos shel or' (danced with torches of light)"; "a torch is a great light — that is, in the level of the light's essence" [58838/maamar_005 :: עב׳ 323–331]. "The main joy is in simchas beis hasho'evah, which begins on the second night of Sukkos" [58838/maamar_005 :: עב׳ 343]. The dancing with torches indicates that the revelation is "the unlimited light's essence shining in revelation — in general the revelation of Ohr Ein Sof before the tzimtzum" — the fruit of Yom Kippur's teshuvah ("ki be'anan eira'eh") [58838/maamar_005 :: Overview]. The four or eight torches: "four is in the level of the four letters of the name Havayah — which are the four worlds ABY'A" — the revelation shining in all four worlds; eight is the supernal name Havayah — "the revelation from the inwardness and essence of Ohr Ein Sof before the tzimtzum" [58838/maamar_005 :: עב׳ 371–373; Overview].

Key distinctions

Related concepts

Sources